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Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England, 1650–1900

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Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England, 1650–1900 Withey, Alun. "The dominion of the beard, c. 1850–1900." Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England, 1650–1900. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. 55–78. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 24 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350127876.ch-004>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 24 September 2021, 23:40 UTC. Copyright © Alun Withey 2021. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 55 4 Th e dominion of the beard, c. 1850–1900 In the early decades of the nineteenth century, but for a relatively limited metropolitan fashion for side whiskers, facial hair remained generally unpopular in Britain. 1 In 1834, the Toilette of Health, Beauty and Fashion extolled the virtues of a clean shave, citing the beard as a mark of the plebeian. ‘An unshorn chin,’ it argued, ‘has a degenerating aspect and is only, if at all, excusable in the lowest labourer and mechanic for the infrequency of its removal.’ 2 Shaving was still regarded as a manly act. Th e patience and skill required, along with the endurance of discomfort, built character, putting a gentleman in ‘a frame of mind favourable to his moral improvement’. 3 Around 1850, however, a changing climate of ideas emerged around male identity, bodily appearance and, in particular, the physicality of the male body. Manliness and authority became allied with, and defi ned by, physical characteristics such as fi tness and vigour, as well as corporeal male form, shape and appearance. In an eff ort to provide compelling evidence through which to reassert the ‘natural’ authority of men, the body became ‘the ultimate foundation of masculine authority and autonomy’ and a benchmark by which to measure the manliness and character of individual men. 4 Bodily fi tness was analogous with fi tness to rule. 5 Th e new Victorian man was physically robust, ready for action and also fi t to lead if required. He was personifi ed in the belligerent, martial bodies of fi ghting men, in the rugged, hardy physiques of new heroes, including mountaineers, explorers and hunters and in the ‘muscular Christianity’ advocated by religious writers such as Charles Kingsley. 6 Th e physical strength of the male body was claimed as mandatory evidence of men’s ‘natural’ superiority and authority. As greater attention began to be paid to the attributes and physicality of the male body, so individual bodily features also acquired new prominence. As perhaps the most 1 An article on this nascent ‘whiskers movement’ is currently in preparation. 2 A n o n . , Th e Toilette of Health, Beauty and Fashion, Embracing the Economy of the Beard &c ( Boston : Allen and Ticknor , 1834 ), 160 . 3 R o b e r t S o u t h e y , Th e Doctor &C ( London : Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans , 1838 ), 204 . 4 C h r i s t o p h e r O l d s t o n e - M o o r e , ‘ Th e Beard Movement in Victorian Britain ’, Victorian Studies , 48 : 1 ( 2005 ): 9 . 5 Jacob Middelton , ‘ Th e Beard and Victorian Ideas of Masculinity ’, in Dominic Janes (ed.), Back to the Future of the Body ( Newcastle : Cambridge Scholars , 2007 ), 34 . 6 Oldstone-Moore, ‘Beard Movement’, 13, 15–20; Susan Walton , ‘ From Squalid Impropriety to Manly Respectability: Th e Revival of Beards, Moustaches and Martial Values in the 1850s in England ’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts , 30 : 3 ( 2008 ): 235 . 99781350127845_pi-308.indd781350127845_pi-308.indd 5555 002-Dec-202-Dec-20 111:53:501:53:50 AAMM 56 56 Concerning Beards visible and public symbol of the male body, facial hair – and particularly the beard – returned to prominence as a key signifi er of masculine traits such as manly strength and character. Th is chapter explores the place of facial hair in defi ning gender (and in particular masculinity), class and race in the nineteenth century. First, it charts the relationship between beards and shift ing concepts of masculinity aft er 1850. Second, it charts the place of beards within health and medical debates, including the emerging popular practice of physiognomy and the specifi c technological context through which arguments made in support of beards should be understood. Th e fi nal part of the chapter then turns to broader questions about facial hair as a component in the construction of a specifi cally British manliness and, to some extent, national superiority, in the age of Empire. Overall it argues that commentators deployed facial hair in popular (and some medical) writing in a variety of contexts in the nineteenth century, including navigating the complex challenges and changes wrought by modernity, industrial and urban life; shift s in medical and scientifi c understanding and new technologies; and also in attempting to demonstrate British national character and Imperial endeavour. Facial hair and masculinity In some respects, facial hair might seem an unlikely symbol for veneration. In an era that privileged control, a long beard might easily convey loss of control over the body implying, as in the previous century, that a man had neglected attention towards his appearance. Further unfl attering connections of the bearded face with political radicalism, together with fact that beard-wearing was open to all classes, had the potential to render facial hair as undesirable. But as early as the 1830s there were calls for the return of the beard, based on both its physical and symbolic masculine power. In 1838 the Penny Satirist extolled its virtues, claiming that shaving ‘destroys the manhood’, made men weak and eff eminate and threatened to ‘womanize the whole species’. 7 Alongside an increasing awareness of the gendered signifi cance of the beard, many factors coalesced to provide a febrile environment for the return of beards. One was simply a reaction against decades of beardlessness. Men born in 1820 were likely the third or even fourth generation living in a beardless age. Like other fashion trends, such as wigs, what began as a marker of civility and gentlemanliness had gradually shed its symbolic power through ubiquity. In the eighteenth century, being clean- shaven had evinced polite manliness. But aft er 1800, young men were beginning to seek their own fashionable alternatives. Historians have located the return of facial hair within a number of deeper changes in, and challenges to, masculinity and manliness. As John Tosh has argued, the period between 1800 and 1914 in Britain brought increasingly sharp distinctions between 7 Anon. , ‘ A Chapter on Shaving ’, Penny Satirist (15 September 1838 ): 19–20 . 99781350127845_pi-308.indd781350127845_pi-308.indd 5566 002-Dec-202-Dec-20 111:53:501:53:50 AAMM 57 Th e Dominion of the Beard 57 categories of gender and sexuality. Rapid industrial and economic change created new circumstances for men, in turn forcing the remodelling of concepts of masculinity, the construction of manliness and the male body. 8 First were the physical and emotional challenges of adapting to a newly industrializing society. As well as having to navigate changing hierarchical structures and new working environments, men were under pressure to ‘produce’. Th is, in itself, was not new, since men had always been regarded as providers for families. 9 In the nineteenth century, however, these longstanding ideas were reshaped as a drive for working men to be given a wage that would support an entire family, thereby removing the need for a wife to contribute to the domestic economy. An increasing focus upon, and valorization of, work further emphasized men’s role as breadwinners in the household. 10 Second were shift ing concepts of patriarchal authority and its exercise both in the workplace and the home. 11 As the domestic sphere became more important, and since women traditionally controlled the household economy, male behaviour and self-presentation focused upon their supposed authority over home and hearth. 12 Th ird was the increasing polarization of male and female bodies, with emphases upon the sexual ‘otherness’ and bodily diff erence of women and the privileging of gender-specifi c bodily characteristics. Fears about bodily and sexual ‘diff erence’ also manifested in attitudes towards eff eminacy and homosexuality, reinforced by perceptions of the physical and moral laxity of the male population in the mid-century. 13 Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the period aft er 1840 saw a new focus upon soldiers as exemplars of ideal masculine characteristics. Th e constraints of home and workplace acted to confi ne large numbers of Victorian men inside for long periods of time. Th is created tensions between the romanticized vision of manliness, emphasizing the fi tness of male bodies for a life immersed in wild nature and harsh elements, versus the dull reality of a sedentary existence spent indoors. As Susan Walton has suggested, the late 1840s saw a remaking of the symbolism of military facial hair. Whereas British men had once avoided moustaches because of their supposed links to countries operating compulsory military service, the moustache now became a symbol of manly courage and belligerence, linked to military prowess. 14 Th e successes and perceived heroism of (bearded) British soldiers in the Crimean War, further reinforced the beard as an accoutrement of the military ultramale. 15 By cultivating his facial hair, the civilian man, perhaps embarrassed or constrained by his domestic and working life, could remake himself in their martial image. All of these points are compelling, but it could be argued that the fashion for beards perhaps also related to broader and deeper concerns about the impact and eff ects of modernity itself.
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